Wednesday, 18 February 2015

All of a sudden, there is heaps of stuff going on with London's cycling infrastructure. I'm afraid this blog post isn't going to be the most exciting, but it's an attempt to provide a quick update on some of the latest schemes that need your attention.

Less encouragingly, it is still entirely unclear what the City of London is doing at Aldgate. TfL has already started building the long overdue protected cycle track from Aldgate to Bow. The problem is that no-one really seems to know what's going on at the Aldgate end. The City is removing the Aldgate gyratory, which is very welcome, but it's not clear to me, or anyone else I speak with, what the City's final plans are at the end of Cycle Super Highway 2 when the road passes from TfL control to City of London control. This has been rumbling on since 2013, when draft plans were issued, recalled, and reissued. The last plans I saw showed the protected cycle tracks stopping at Aldgate where people would be forced back into cycling in front of HGVs and coaches on narrowed general traffic lanes.

Museum of London roundabout. Follow the (green) bike-only
filter to turn left. Swing into the narrow right hand lane
with motor traffic honking at you for '
not being in the bike lane' to go straight across (red)

Also within the City, some people will have noticed the weird goings-on at the Museum of London roundabout. If you're heading south, you're now encouraged into a cycle-only left-turn filter. If like most people, you're cycling straight across, you now have to enter the right hand lane at the roundabout entrance. I find the whole thing utterly confusing and resent being made to filter into the right hand lane just to travel straight across. It's not always the easiest manoeuvre and is entirely counter-intuitive on a bike as well as for drivers who don't understand why people on bikes are suddenly moving OUT of the cycle lane (not realising the bike lane is only for left turns). It also means close overtakes on the narrowed lane on the roundabout itself. Nasty stuff. This is the fourth most dangerous junction in the City and it's hardly surprising to see why. The only upside I can see is that the City is experimenting here with a view to sweeping away the whole gyratory scheme between St Paul's and the Museum of London within the next few years. What needs to happen here is slower motor traffic speeds, better pedestrian crossings and safe space for cycling. It feels to me like here is one roundabout where there is plenty of space to achieve that with a standard Dutch roundabout layout rather than this weird mix of on-off cycle lanes.

Apparently, this is a cycle track. Shared use pedestrian / cycle crossings
and then along the pavement in front of the tube station.
Not good enough by a very long way

Tuesday, 10 February 2015

TfL's proposal is for safe space for cycling at Buckingham Palace. The Royal Parks have vetoed this plan

Imagine cycling on London's new and impressive cycle highway with your teenage children. You're cycling along safe, protected tracks all the way through from the Tower of London on your way to Hyde Park. And then, just as you get to Buckingham Palace, the cycle tracks stop. And you and your kids will have to move into three lanes of traffic, then turn off the road onto the pavement and wait to cross SIX lanes of traffic, to get back on to the cycle track. Heading the other way, you'll just have to make it across the junction above by mixing in with all the taxis turning left as you try to cycle straight on.

In front of one of the world's most iconic landmarks, we will have one of the world's most laughable pieces of cycle infrastructure. The tourists who see it will compare with what's going on back at home and have to laugh at just how backwards Britain is. Or, rather, it would be laughable if it weren't so downright irresponsible of The Royal Parks and so dangerous for everyone forced to use it.

The picture above shows Transport for London's proposal and looks quite harmless to me. You can see that cyclists are given a safe space to cycle through the junction from left to right and are kept neatly away from the motor traffic. Pictured below is a map that shows what the Royal Parks wants you to do: Jump off the cycle track (in red) and into the stream of traffic through the junction. And then back off the road on to a track. As the Evening Standard put it, this create a genuine "giant gap" right in the middle of the Mayor's cycle super highway.

Proposed route courtesy of the Royal Parks. Highlighted in red: Off the cycle track, back on to the road.

Buckingham Palace is in the bottom of this map. Alternatively, wind through thousands of pedestrians

on the section in green.

If you look carefully at the plans, you will see there is in fact an alternative to sprinting it across the front of Buckingham Palace. And that is by following the service road along The Mall and then on to the Constitution Hill cycle track by following the bit I've highlighted in green above. But that means cycling through a shared space area which is the extremely busy pedestrian tourist route to Buckingham Palace from Green Park. The Royal Parks can't seriously want to encourage people to cycle directly across the path of all those thousands of tourists? It would be chaos for everyone.

I don't think The Royal Parks has much of a clue what they're doing with the cycle super highway. In November it wrote to the Mayor insisting that "the Cycle Superhighway routes must be entirely road based as they pass through Hyde Park".And yet it seems to be encouraging TfL to build a solution through the park that ISN'T road-based (the majority of the route will be on protected tracks) except in front of the Palace where it will be. The letter suggests that The Royal Parks is rather worried about 'more cycling' in the Park and its impact on other users. Fair enough. But nowhere does The Royal Parks seem worried about the massive volumes of motor traffic in the parks and the impact of that on other users. Bikes are the demon, it seems, but it's fine to route multiple lanes of through motor traffic through a park. Just bizarre.

The problem section hightlighted in red. Between Birdcage Walk and Constitution Hill,
thanks to the Royal Parks, you're on your own, mate.

The latest consultation shows the route of the proposed cycle highway through the Royal Parks. There are, to be fair, some decent bits here. Much widening of existing, low-grade cycle infrastructure that could make it properly useful. That said, I have my own strong doubts about the fact that this cycle highway will be closed late at night (Hyde Park section will be shut), thereby dumping people on the hugely busy, multi lane alternatives which are Park Lane and Bayswater Road and I think that needs addressing as well. And I can see that The Royal Parks may wonder why the cycle highway can't be routed, say, up the side of Park Lane and the side of Bayswater Road.

2) But why not ping an email to the Chief Executive of The Royal Parks, Linda Lennon, The Old Police House, Hyde Park, W2 2UH - email chiefexecutive@royalparks.gsi.gov.uk and ask her to reconsider her position to allow safe space for cycling in front of the Palace. The current plans simply don't stand up.

Following the Evening Standard article, are The Royal Parks back tracking?

Here's the email sent by the Freight Trade Association to TfL's lawyers. Strangely, the email subject line

is 'Canary Wharf Response to Cycle Superhighway Announcement".

Why is the FTA sending Canary Wharf's emails for them?

What we also learned today is that Canary Wharf seems to be playing some new dirty tricks: At one point during the board meeting Boris brought up the fact that the TfL board members had received letters objecting to the scheme which "left the Canary Wharf Group draft letter on by accident". The letter was sent to the board and is therefore a public document. And it is pretty blatant. What Boris is referring to is a letter emailed from the Freight Trade Association to TfL board members objecting to the Cycle Super Highways in which the FTA (rather foolishly) left the following email subject line: "Fwd: Canary Wharf Response to Cycle Superhighway Announcement". In other words, it looks awfully like the Freight Trade Association is sending Canary Wharf's for them. Either that or it is a rather odd honest mistake. In any case, it all feels like a repeat of the dodgy briefing paper that Canary Wharf was circulating last year.

We have also been told by one reliable media source that the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association told him their plan to seek a Judicial Review against the cycleways was likely to be funded by Canary Wharf Group. One media source is not concrete evidence that Canary Wharf Group and the LTDA are working hand in hand but it is public knowledge that Canary Wharf Group has not denied it is interested in a judicial review. And we know that the LTDA would like to pursue a judicial review.

It feels to me like what is emerging is a pattern whereby Canary Wharf Group is trying to subvert the public consultation and it appears that it may be using front-guys like the LTDA and Freight Trade Association to pursue its own agenda. If that really is the case, then the question is not really about cycling any more, it's about who actually runs London. The Mayor and the democratic structures that support him? Or Canary Wharf?

Why would Canary Wharf Group be so hell-bent on wrecking the Cycle Super Highway plans?

It does seem that Canary Wharf Group is agitating very strongly to kill the Cycle Super Highway. And you have to ask why. Furthermore, you have to ask whether Canary Wharf Group is beginning to demonstrate excess influence on London's democratic planning processes.

Along with thousands of others, I am hugely relieved that TfL has approved the Cycle Super Highways. We're now all waiting to see whether someone will attempt a Judicial Enquiry to stop them from happening. The question is who will be funding that and whether they'll come clean about it.

This afternoon, there has been another serious collision on a busy London road. Yet again, between someone driving a lorry and a person on a bike. Yet again, the person cycling has been killed. I'm left not knowing what to think. Every time this happens (and the last time it happened was a week ago), I think it could have been me. Or my partner. Or a colleague, or friend. And I get angry. I get angry because I think of all the people who could be doing things to stop these deaths and have done nothing. I get even angrier when I think about the people - and I count Canary Wharf Group and the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association among them - who are actively trying to keep the status quo.

On Wednesday, Transport for London's board has a chance to put things right and to vote to change things by backing the Mayor's Cycle Super Highway plans. And it would be scandalous if the TfL board voted otherwise.

That's all well and good. But people are being encourage to cycle on main roads with virtually nothing to protect them: No safe space for cycling, forced to mix it with fast-moving lorries and buses and with parked vans in the bus lanes. And to date, the Mayor's investment in making cycling safer has, in my opinion, been predominantly focussed on painting blue lines down these busy, main roads. As a result, as cycling trips increase, so the number of people killed and seriously injured has gone up. In other cities, the opposite has happened. They have built safe cycling infrastructure, the numbers of cycle trips have gone up but cycling has become safer.

But the Mayor too has changed. He has realised that blue lines simply aren't good enough. And to his credit he has persuaded the Treasury to fund meaningful investment in making it safe and convenient to travel by bike. He's taken Transport for London with him on the journey and TfL has hitched itself up, studying and learning from other cities. What's coming is a series of new cycleways that will be largely protected from heavy, busy motor traffic. The proposed network is still tiny and most people will be stuck travelling on killer roads for years to come. But it is a massive start. And a massive change.

The TfL board is a strange set-up. Chair of the TfL finance committee is Peter Anderson, finance director of Canary Wharf Group. As we all know, Canary Wharf Group attempted a dirty tricks campaign to brief against the Cycle Super Highways. Canary Wharf's latest position is to demand that TfL build a "trial" cycle super highway rather than the real thing. Can you build a trial motorway? Or a trial train line? No you can't. And you can't build a trial cycle way either. Canary Wharf's public positioning on this subject is a farce. From what I understand, however, the Canary Wharf finance director is still free to attend the TfL board that will decide on Cycle Super Highways, despite the stellar conflict of interest on this topic. It is quite surprising that TfL's governance procedures are so lax to allow that to happen.

Unite the Union in support of protected
cycleways

The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association also has a seat on the TfL board - one of two taxi-related TfL seats. And the LTDA has been vociferous about trying to kill of the Cycle Super Highways, threatening a judicial review. They too get to sit on the Board meeting that will decide the fate of Cycle Super Highways, despite threatening to derail them (although I think the LTDA has observer-only status).

You might note, by the way, that no-one on the TfL board represents people who cycle.

So Wedneday is going to be crunch time. As Boris Johnson said last week, he's confident the full board will back the schemes later this week: "We’ll have to see but I’m confident they will.” I guess we will all see whether the TfL board gives in to naked self-interest. Or whether it acts to protect the people of London and provide them with safe routes for cycling.